Mental Health youth with record level of sadness

By daniel h. gillison, Jr.

funding and policies that enable all schools to increase access to appropriate mental health services for students.

Here at NAMI, we are continuing to expand our resources for youth and communities of varied cultures and identities through initiatives like our new online Ending the Silence program for middle school and high school students, partnership with HBCUs and sororities across the country, equipping faith leaders with mental health resources, and more. We've even expaneded a new texting option to our NAMI Helpline in an effort to make young people more comfortable reaching out for help. It will take all of us working together across industries to create meaningful change.

What You Can Do

The antidote to loneliness and hopelessness is purpose and connection.

A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alarmingly illustrates the long-term mental health impacts COVID-19 had on our nation's youth.

According to the recently released data, in 2021:

More than 4 in 10 students felt persistently sad or hopeless

Nearly one-third of students experienced poor mental health

More than 1 in 5 students seriously considered attempting suicide

And 1 in 10 students attempted suicide

We also learned that some young people are struggling more than others:

Nearly 3 in 5 teenage girls felt persistent sadness in 2021, with 1 in 3 girls reporting that they considered attempting suicide-up nearly 60% from a decade ago

Nearly 3 in 4 LGBQ+ students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, with almost half of LGBQ+ students seriously considered attempting suicide and nearly 1 in 4 attempting suicide;

And suicide rates for young Black people age 10-24 increased significantly between 2018-2021.

These numbers sound alarm bells around the urgent need to address the mental health crisis among our youth and the ongoing disparities in care delivery. And they remind us of the severe consequences that come from sustained isolation and stress.

Our Response Reversing these trends will require ongoing national investments in mental health - including support for

If you are wondering how to support young people right now, the most important thing is to be intentional about engaging with them authentically and providing them with spaces to show their true selves and talk about how they're really doing.

Even though it may seem like a young person has a lot of friends on social media or elsewhere, many are feeling more isolated than ever right now, are struggling to keep up with a variety of pressures, and are still processing a lot of the collective traumas we've all experienced over the last few years. We can all play a role in providing young people with community and support by:

Educating ourselves on the issues young people are facing

Empowering young people, championing their voices, and truly listening to them

Spending time with young people, checking in on them and connecting them to further support

And advocating for more resources to increase early intervention through school systems and other places young people frequent

In a time where teenagers are facing record levels of sadness, we must meet them where they are to bring record levels of hope.

If you or someone you know are experiencing a substance use, suicide or mental health crisis, call or text 988 or chat at 988Lifeline org

Daniel H. Gillison, Jr. is the chief executive officer of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness). Prior to his work at NAMI, he served as executive director of the American Psychiatric Association Foundation (APAF) in addition to several other leadership roles at various large corporations such as Xerox, Nextel, and Sprint. He is passionate about making inclusive, culturally competent mental health resources available to all people.

NAMI is the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the nation's largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for millions of Americans affected by mental illness through education, support and advocacy

By Patrick Neustatter, MD

I was talking to my sister on the phone the other day. I told her, "You know, even though I've been at it all these years, I still get a little spazzed out about going to see patients"which I now do at the Moss Clinic.

Then I thought about. I corrected myself. " You know it's not the patients. It's having to wrestle with the computer. With the electronic medical record."

An Obligatory "Improvement" EMR (sometimes called electronic health record or EHR) was introduced in the 60's and 70's as the best thing since sliced bread.

There's no question paper charts are a pain with their illegible/Sanskrit hand writing, the problems of storage, filing, tracking, copying. So, as in so many walks of life, computers have insinuated themselves - encouraged by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2014, that meant doctors using EMR got paid more - and those who don't are penalized.

This has been a great business opportunity for developers of EMR - a report in the New England Journal of Medicine noted more than 700 different vendors and 1750 distinct certified products were in existence already by 2012.

They have cutesy names like Hummingbird, Remedly, CureMD, Medical Mastermind and Epic. But the lawyers and the economists got priority, so that EMR's are great for maximizing charges and avoiding malpractice claims - by including a ton of, mostly totally superfluous, information so they create totally unwieldy documents (try reading an ER progress note or discharge summary some time).

I also would like to talk to the people (presumably geeks) that build EMR. I would ask them why I have to scroll through multiple screens. pick lists, drop down menus and make a zillion keystrokes, just to do something as simple as order a lab test or write a prescription.

Also, why I have to over-ride a potential drug interaction warning when prescribing glucose testing strips- those strips you put a drop of blood on an stick in the meter to tell you your blood sugar

- which are not a drug of course. I would also ask "did you ever talk to a doctor in developing this?"

The greatest short coming however is lack of "interoperability ". Interoperability is a fancy word for computers being able to talk to each other. This is what makes you think, when you come to see me, I have all the records from the hospital, other doctors, the lab, the imaging department and know all about you.

I don't. My EMR won't talk to the majority of other EMR's, so we have call to get records faxed then scan them in the chart.

Doctor Burnout

These shortcomings are annoying - but they have a more serious side. EMR has been accused of being one of the prime causes of doctor burnoutwhich is hitting epidemic proportions.

I called Dana Tate, president and CEO of Fredericksburg medical billing company 'sa medical of Virginia' who has a lot of experience of different EMR's.

He did tell me the system we have at Moss is not one of the most user friendly (anyone want to start a GoFundMe to get us Epic?). But he noted a lot of older doctors are retiring because they can't hack the EMR. "The younger doctors who have grown up with computers are dealing with it better."

I guess I fit the old-farts category. A dinosaur in the computer age having trouble adjusting. But it bugs me that the business side has had priority. To quote the NIH, EMR's "seem to be badly designed to do the job they are meant to do and seem to have failed to make patient care better, more efficient, or more satisfying for the patient or the doctor."

MD is the Medical Director of the Moss Free Clinic